Sunder - Map20 Appears, finally.

First off, great WAD, it was nice to have ultrahard levels that had more to them than just lots of monsters. Of course, nitpicking is required, so...

Python - Nice opener, though the outside did seem a bit wasted, as you don't really do much out there, despite it being the eyecatching part of the level, design wise. Also, the Arch-vile spawn back inside the arena portion was obnoxious, simply because if you're not expecting it(like me), you'll deal with the Arachnotrons outside only to find a massive horde waiting for you, with no good way to get inside to fight them.

Burrow: Nice asthetic, though there were some ammo concerns at the end of the level, as I'm terrible at getting Cyberdemons to infight with things not on their level(the monsters crowd around the ledge, with them harmlessly firing into the ledge, while the Cyber harmlessly shoots himself in the foot.)

Dreaming Garden: Again, the map is well situated for infighting, if only the monsters would actually infight. The Cyberdemons refused to properly fight with the Hell Knights and Barons, instead shooting himself in the foot while others wandered around. Even if he did have a good line of sight, he'd just go on shooting at the ones he couldn't hit, leading to severe ammo shortages as I had to take almost all of them out myself, when that clearly wasn't supposed to be the case.

Metal Descendants: Now we're talking. While it lacked the fancy appearances of the previous maps, this is easily one of my favorite doom maps, simply because of the unique setup. Crushers tend to just be... "there" in most maps that feature them, actually making them your primary weapon is an amusing idea, and one I liked very much. Only gameplay complaint would be the Imp room, wherein the crusher isn't placed where it can do much good, and you're rather likely to get caught on the imps trying to shoot them from below, and shoot yourself in the foot from above.

Precarious: Really nice idea here, the style of the map was beautiful to behold. Not too much to say about it that hasn't already been said, though I must point out that the Pain Elementals are astoundingly obnoxious. Waiting for them results in hordes of Lost Souls roaming the map, charging them results in getting knocked off by Lost Souls, and trying to bullet them from afar results in more lost souls blocking your shots and wasting all your ammo.

Grinder: As said before, I fail at getting infighting going among different elevations. Even better, I fail at combat where I don't have a clear direction to go, or any place at all to move to. Gotta admit, I godmoded the first area, as it just was not happening, my style of hordefighting just doesn't work in an area that small or height varied. Once that was over, though, the map got better. Not a map I overly enjoyed, but that's more my fault of how I play than yours as the level designer.

Hollow Icon: This was quite a fun level, if only because of how epic the last few fights were. Not too much to say, but I gotta admit, the hunting for switches after the fights were over was obnoxious. I know it's set up that way to prevent people from bypassing the fights easily, but some way to know where they're hiding aside from staring very carefully at the map or doing laps around the arenas would have been appreciated.

Pale Monument: My favorite level by far. The design is impressive, Misri Halek a fitting music choice, and the Cacoswarm. Dear god the Cacoswarm. Metal Descendants might be the most unique setup for a fight, but the Cacoswarm was the most fun, shooting them down while fleeing the ever growing cloud of hissing monstrosities, hurriedly thinking where that last ammo cache was, and how to get to it. It just worked. That said, odd bug at the end: The final fight door didn't close when I went in there, instead closing when I left(thus locking me out). Trigger in a bad spot? Or is that intentional and I'm just being silly?

The Cage: Again, I'm bad at confined fighting, though my main complaint here is getting lost. I didn't finish this level, as I have no clue where to go, 699 kills in.

The Hag's Finger: Nice ending map, though if I recall correctly, I had an issue with the health setup for the map. There's a good amount of health, but it's all health, almost no armor. Just seemed a bit odd.

Overall, I'd say my favorite maps were: Pale Monument, Metal Descendents, Hollow Icon, and Hags Finger. Good WAD here, hope to see more from you.
Played with GZDOOM. Final time: 5:41. Map 9 not finished, the rest 100% kills.

SON OF A!

I finally succeeded in UV Maxing Pale Monument except.. 1 monster failed to teleport in! I'll upload the demo shortly.

You really need to perfect the teleporting lines Gazebo :( The teleporter bugged up at the HK/Caco/Arachnotron spawn near the final room, they were coming out slowly this time, especially the Arachnotrons, a few every minute or so.

EDIT: Here we are Gentlemen! A UV Max of MAP08 - 53:54, text file explains why the time is high.

http://www.zshare.net/download/7086137092427826/

We just tried playing this on 1-life Survival mode on Skulltag. Very fun! However, though we know it was intended for single-player, it could use the player two, three and four player starts. It doesn't break the maps, it just causes a lot of telefragging at the start.

Just downloaded this. Played the first level on UV and got raped, but it was fun. Will definitely add this to the scoredoom hi score server when I get some time.

Hi gazebo. Just a couple of minor things I noticed as i was playing through, just for a future version.

MAP 07
--------
-linedef 7934 and 15871 are misaligned.
-linedefs 12554 and 12518, 12584 and 12620 should be scrolling I think, like the ones near them. Looks kinda weird if they aren't.


I had a couple of things from earlier maps, but I don't know what I did with the screenies. Oops.

fantastic stuff tho. Loving it. Moar!!

Watching Krypto's Map08 demo (great stuff, by the way), I saw something like a HOM on the floor in the final room. Looking at it in DB2, I didn't see missing textures there but the floor graphics look weird, bleeding on other sectors.

Thank you very much glad you enjoyed it. Indeed I've noticed a similar HOM occur at the start of MAP03 when playing in GLBoom+. Concerning the last monster not teleporting in it seems to be a common reoccurence and not merely bad luck, sources confirm the culprit could be a Cyberdemon in the final room.

For the record 'Sunder' plays woefully as a Cooperative based WAD. The earlier levels are too cramped to be played safely with an additional number of players, in fact adding to the challenge as paths being crossed will be a common occurence but the most fatal flaw is the crucial fact that every battle requires a carefully woven strategy which ofcourse is impossible to carry out with others acting as obstacles and generally using their own method of dealing with tense situations.

I perceive other players as 'Atoms' which tend to react with the inhabitants of each map in a negative manner, I'd prefer to have sole control over implementing a strategy for each seperate battle.

I'll stick to Single-Player as was the core intention offering the most enjoyable experience.

Bloodite Krypto said:

Map08 Stuff

Damn. I swear I had that fixed in 1.3.

I went and checked it in ZDoom, and it's likely it's been fixed in the version I have on my HDD, as none of the monsters had any trouble getting out.

I think it was one of those bugs I kept forgetting about. (Turns out the tele exits were a little small.)

Seriously kick-arse run though :)

As for the 'bleeding' in the final room, it might be because some of the walls in there aren't quite lined up to the grid, where some are. Either that, or it's a PrBoom thing? I never noticed any in ZDoom.

Just something that I noticed on MAP 08. In one part, it is actually possible to break the map and lock yourself out of the final area.

-Hit switch at linedef 5891. (Which opens door at sector 29). Now if you run into that room quickly enough, you will run over linedef 195 (which closes sector 29) before the door is fully open. So when everything starts teleporting in, what do you do? You run back out the way you came in. And if you run over linedef 195 on the way out, you will make it out before the door has shut. Door shuts behind you. So now you are locked out.

Another easier way to break that section is to simply go around either side of linedef 5891. There is plenty of room either side to just walk past it and not trigger the door shut at all. Then if you run out, same thing happens.

You could perhaps make linedef 5891 a repeatable switch. Or you could move the door closing trigger further inwards, away from the door, so it can't be missed. And makes sure the linedef triggers stretch from wall to wall, not just in the middle of the entrance.

Also, there was one cyberdemon that didn't teleport into the level.
Screenie. It couldn't actually cross any of the teleport lines, so either the step was too high, or the sector was not high enough for it to walk across. Which is odd, coz there were 2 cyberdemons, and the other one got through fine. [edit]just noticed this has already been mentioned[/edit]

MAP 09
--------

Somehow broke the level right at the start, purely by accident.
Screenie

Ran backwards away from that archvile and these pillars raised in front of me.

Anyway, sorry to be picky, as I have said, love these maps. :D

Kyka said:

Just something that I noticed on MAP 08. In one part, it is actually possible to break the map and lock yourself out of the final area.

-Hit switch at linedef 5891. (Which opens door at sector 29). Now if you run into that room quickly enough, you will run over linedef 195 (which closes sector 29) before the door is fully open. So when everything starts teleporting in, what do you do? You run back out the way you came in. And if you run over linedef 195 on the way out, you will make it out before the door has shut. Door shuts behind you. So now you are locked out.

Another easier way to break that section is to simply go around either side of linedef 5891. There is plenty of room either side to just walk past it and not trigger the door shut at all. Then if you run out, same thing happens.

You could perhaps make linedef 5891 a repeatable switch. Or you could move the door closing trigger further inwards, away from the door, so it can't be missed. And makes sure the linedef triggers stretch from wall to wall, not just in the middle of the entrance.

Also, there was one cyberdemon that didn't teleport into the level.
Screenie. It couldn't actually cross any of the teleport lines, so either the step was too high, or the sector was not high enough for it to walk across. Which is odd, coz there were 2 cyberdemons, and the other one got through fine. [edit]just noticed this has already been mentioned[/edit]

MAP 09
--------

Somehow broke the level right at the start, purely by accident.
Screenie

Ran backwards away from that archvile and these pillars raised in front of me.

Anyway, sorry to be picky, as I have said, love these maps. :D

Easy solution proposal for "locked out of next area" issues: make the "outer" side of the door/pillar/whatever blocking the way switchable (in the case of the MAP09 pillars, for example, you could make the outer side SR Lift Lower Wait Raise). That way, you will get locked in like you're supposed to, but you can't get locked out.

Just another couple of bugs, one of which potentially breaks the level. (Again wasn't in "serious playtesting" mode, just noticed these as I was playing.)

-the downward stairs beginning at sector 391 are incredibly not obvious. I ended up opening the level in DoomBuilder to find out where I had to go. Perhaps this was just me missing them, but I will mention it anyway. Perhaps a couple of pillars or something to mark the spot where they start might be good. Or remove them entirely and just raise up sector 1004 and others in that vicinity so they are visible from ground level, rather than sitting way down beneath where they will likely be noticed.
-Action 38/tag 95 which is on linedefs 9915 and 9736 also needs to be on linedefs 9734 and at least a 128 long segment of linedef 7487, to prevent running onto that lower section (beginning at sectors 536 and 563) from the 'sides', which I did on a second playthrough, and I was like. "Wait a second. There is supposed to be a horde of monsters here somewhere." This is especially true seeing as you can't get back up to walk over and trigger those linedefs once you are down there.
-linedefs 11567 and 11571 are misaligned.
-sector 867 shouldn't be damaging imo. The blood just next to it doesn't damage, but you step one inch further and you start taking massive hellslime damage? Hmmm.

This is probably my second favorite level after that metal one with all the crushers. (Map 04 iirc)

Couple more things with map 09.

-I managed to raise sector 1286 while I was still standing on it. Which if I had stepped backwards off it, would have left me locked out of that area, pretty thoroughly breaking the map at that point. The other problem is a purely ZDoom issue (which I will mention for the sake of compatibility, though seeing as this sia Boom mapset, you may not be worried about this) archviles can throw you over sectors such as 1286, 1285, 1284 etc, which again breaks the map. There is a lot of archviles in this area tho.
-sector 478 shouldn't be damaging either imo.
-Is the ceiling of sectors 1145, 1146, 1147, 1148 meant to be that brown water texture?

Map 10

The only thing with map 10 is sectors 1047, 1048, 1049. those pillars need to be, say 48 units higher. Archvile blasts on ZDoom throws you over them, which kinda breaks the level. (Unless you are not worried about ZDoom issues.)

-Damn that final battle was tough (not saying this as a criticism tho.) Was awesome. I died so many many times. It is not often you will hear me say that having 5 cyberdemons in a battle made it easier. This is of course assuming you live long enough for them to even arrive.

Well, I have now finished all 10 levels. Onto the newest map 11. Which I am sure will be a walk in the park. o_0 How hard can 2907 monsters be, anyway?

Are you using an old version of ZDoom ? ZDoom used to have a bug causing archviles to propel yourself for up to about 130 units, but it's been fixed since then and now it's about the same height as Doom - maybe about 5 or 10 units higher at most, but we're talking in the 70 range anyway and there's a 96 height difference between the floor and the Map10 pillars you mentioned.

Quickly checked in GZDoom 1.4.1, just to make sure : it works as intended, an AV jump isn't enough to go over the pillars before they're lowered.

Hey Phml. I am using ZDoom 2.3.1 (Or whatever version is the one before the newest one that has just come out. I haven't upgraded yet.) Is this the version you were talking about?

Possibly I got thrown over the bars by getting hit by multiple archviles at the same time, which seems to multiply the height of the archvile jump. Either way, I made it over the bars, and survived to be stuck on the other side.

2.3.1 is one of the versions with the bug. I gave it a try myself, and a single AV jump was enough to propel myself over the pillars.

I believe it's there in 2.2.0 too, it seems it was a long-standing bug.

So far I've only played Python but I enjoyed it greatly. The Arch-Vile spawns after going outside can be troublesome but luckily the Cyber killed every monster except for two and the Cyber fell in one SSG shot. Anyways, great job most fun I've had playing any game for a while.

Phml said:

2.3.1 is one of the versions with the bug. I gave it a try myself, and a single AV jump was enough to propel myself over the pillars.

I believe it's there in 2.2.0 too, it seems it was a long-standing bug.

Thanks for the clarification phml. I am glad there are people who know about this stuff. I sure don't. Though reading the appropriate forums would probably bring me up to date.

Anyway, to the matter at hand. Sorry Gazebo, I haven't really had a chance to have a good play through map 11 yet, but one thing I did notice:

Linedefs 335, 369, 403, 437, 471, 921, 923, 925, and 487 all have their back side midtextures misaligned.

More to come. (Assuming I find anything, that is.)

I always thought the archvile height thing was one of ZDoom's features and was intentional. I guess not. It looks like it's fixed in ZDoom 2.4.0 as well.

did a few more uv-max runs just for fun :)

map 05 - precarious - 16:28
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3R_vpvPWMw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58qlZiDXEho

map 07 - hollow icon - 18:23
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3bq83bldUA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ktRW21Y4iQ

map 09 - the cage - 33:08
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJye2yj0h7c
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=neDKyolwKhw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXzvEDv4zqw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYzllqXmQf0

might have a go at grinder later

Okuplok said:
did a few more uv-max runs just for fun :)

map 05 - precarious - 16:28
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3R_vpvPWMw

Gotta love that Hellknight killing the Cyb.

Eternity is having some major rendering glitches on MAP10, and I'm curious if any other ports suffer from the problem, or if this is an issue in Cardboard that we need to get on pronto. Basically portions of the sky and occasionally the outer walls become HOM when viewed from certain angles/locations. It's got me worried to say the least.

Brilliant map set though. Unforgivingly tough, yet still compelling enough to make you want to finish against the odds.

It's not EE's fault. There's a bug there in Odamex and PRBoom as well for me. I'm guessing it's a nodebuilder error.

Quasar said:

Eternity is having some major rendering glitches on MAP10, and I'm curious if any other ports suffer from the problem, or if this is an issue in Cardboard that we need to get on pronto. Basically portions of the sky and occasionally the outer walls become HOM when viewed from certain angles/locations. It's got me worried to say the least.

I think this is what is meant here:

Insane_Gazebo said:

Known Issues:

Map10 - Runs poorly on ZDoom in software mode.

That said, I've seen no visual glitches in ZDoom other than what's typical of Doom when the sky is lower in a sector than the surrounding sectors; but you've got to be on the elevator to the exit to notice it, and odds are you won't be looking at the (very limited) city vista you can get from that vantage point. I've seen no HOMs. Didn't look at the sky from everywhere, though, the map is huge.

If these HOMs do not happen in ZDoom but do happen in Odamex, then it means that at some moment Randy must have fixed a Doom bug in the renderer.

Gez said:

If these HOMs do not happen in ZDoom but do happen in Odamex, then it means that at some moment Randy must have fixed a Doom bug in the renderer.

This bug is indeed not there in Zdoom. But it's highly unlikely that it's the renderer of Odamex and PRboom and Eternity that is at fault here. Simply because they don't all have the same renderers.

Correct me if I am wrong. But I've heard that Zdoom automatically converts all Doom format maps into Hexen map format at run time. If this is indeed correct. Then that's a lot more likely to fix a node bug like this than it being a rendering error.

I personally think the most important factor is that ZDoom builds its own BSP trees ;)

So it wasn't the BSP tree after all!

Eternity SVN log, r979:
R_PointToAngle2 made numerically stable for large coordinates ala fix in ZDoom to use atan2 only when necessary. Fixes Sunder MAP10.

Yeah, nasty thing, that one. I noticed it a few months ago in a map in Stronghold.

Eternity SVN log, r979:
R_PointToAngle2 made numerically stable for large coordinates ala fix in ZDoom to use atan2 only when necessary.

this issue was fixed in prboom/+ two years ago and copy-pasted to zdoom few month ago

ZDoom SVN log, r1985
fixed: R_PointToAngle could overflow with very long vectors passed to
it. This caused rendering bugs on some maps. (Interestingly the only
other port having a safeguard for this in place was PrBoom.)

Everybody's happy now?